Kalain Ho­sein

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist/Re­porter

kalain.ho­sein@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health has con­firmed 21 peo­ple have died as a re­sult of COVID-19 in 2024 to date, with 12 peo­ple cur­rent­ly hos­pi­talised for treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty.

In an up­date on res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es in the coun­try yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Health added that four peo­ple have died from in­fluen­za in T&T for 2024 to date, with 39,450 flu vac­cines ad­min­is­tered.

The MoH said Trinidad and To­ba­go re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion of lo­cal trans­mis­sion of the JN.1 sub-vari­ant cat­e­go­ry on Jan­u­ary 18, 2024. The JN.1 sub-vari­ant, a de­scen­dant of the Omi­cron vari­ant, is now the dom­i­nant vari­ant world­wide.

The min­istry said it is pur­su­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of COVID-19 vac­cines ac­tive­ly and will pro­vide an up­date when they ar­rive in the coun­try. Flu vac­cines re­main avail­able at health cen­tres across the coun­try.

In ad­di­tion, based on da­ta, the min­istry said they had not seen “any no­table in­crease in se­vere res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es with­in the pub­lic health sys­tem”.

The min­istry added, “How­ev­er, the pub­lic is ad­vised that those suf­fer­ing from res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es of any kind should take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions, es­pe­cial­ly in light of on­go­ing poor air qual­i­ty due to the Sa­ha­ran dust in the at­mos­phere. These per­sons are fur­ther en­cour­aged to wear the ap­pro­pri­ate masks (eg, sur­gi­cal or N95 masks), as re­quired, to re­duce the risk of ex­ac­er­bat­ing ex­ist­ing res­pi­ra­to­ry ill­ness­es.”

The min­istry said peo­ple be­long­ing to vul­ner­a­ble groups are more prone to se­vere out­comes if they con­tract COVID-19 and/or in­fluen­za.

“There­fore, the el­der­ly, preg­nant women, im­muno­com­pro­mised per­sons and those with chron­ic Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (NCDs) are ad­vised to ex­er­cise greater cau­tion at this time.”